A Bridge Guard came to get us just after night fell. The nap had left me a bit groggy, but I was sure I would be happy we got some sleep before the night was through. We followed the guard up an interior ladder to the top of the building. Lieutenant Woods was waiting for us, watching the Old City across the river.

“It’s going to be busier than the night you spent on the bridge, Will,” the Halberdier said when we approached. “More enemy variety too.”

“What’s the plan then?” I asked. “I’m not very good at ranged combat.”

“Plenty of enemies will get to the wall, it’s making sure they don’t get any farther, that's the trick” Woods explained. “It would be better if you had a longer weapon, but your sword will work fine for chopping enemies as they climb up.

“Knowing we would be melee heavy, I used my command points to buy short bows for the men,” Woods said, gesturing to the five Bridge Guards. “They can’t fire as far as longbows, but they are cheaper and have a faster rate of fire.”

Each guard was equipped with a short warbow and a quiver of arrows. More arrows were stacked by the ladder, along with a smaller pile of glowing arrows.

“Those are enchanted with holy magic,” the Lieutenant explained, seeing my interest. “They stick into their target, then pump it full of positive energy. It turns most undead to ash instantly.”

“I remember,” I said, rubbing my chest where I had gotten shot by an arrow just like these. The holy magic had healed my injuries, but having an arrow embedded in my flesh for the ensuing fighting had been less than ideal.

“I didn’t have enough points to buy many of them,” Woods said, bringing me back to the present, “so we will have to use them only on important targets.

“The bridge is 44 feet wide,” Woods continued. “That gives us just under five feet of wall for each of us to defend. Discounting Sarah that is,” Woods said, glancing apologetically at the Archivist.

“I’m more of a ‘lead from the back’ kinda gal,” she replied with a smile. “I’ll keep your archers stocked up on arrows, it'll be faster than having them run back to the pile whenever they’re out.”

Woods nodded to her and continued. “Five feet should be comfortable spacing as long as we,” he gestured to himself and Gerald, “are careful with our longer weapons. Archers, if something climbs up the wall in front of you, fall back and let one of the melee fighters take care of it. Just focus on keeping arrows going down range.”

Planning finished, we all took our assigned positions. Woods took the center as the one most suited to this kind of defense, while Gerald and I took the flanks. Eva took one of the ranged spots near me, assuming I was more likely to need help because of my shorter weapons. From north to south it was an archer, me, Eva, another archer, Woods, two archers, Gerald, and then the last archer.

It didn’t take long after that for the first zombies to start crossing the bridge. In the Old City, they moved quickly, advancing on the bridge with swift jerky steps. Once on the bridge however, the undead slowed noticeably. Woods explained that the running water of the Thames robbed the zombies of most of their night-given vitality.

“The river is the only reason London survived the Night of Jagged Teeth at all,” Sarah added. “The running water slowed the undead advance enough to let the human defenders form a response.”

As a consequence of the river slowing the undead down, the walking corpses piled up at the entrance to the bridge. It was like four lanes of traffic going down to one. I could see why Woods had purchased the firebombs early on. The mass of undead made a perfect target for the area of effect weapons.

With the firebombs all used on the bone golem, we only had the archers to thin out the enemies as they slowly shuffled across the bridge. When they got close enough, Eva started throwing. The knives flashed silver in the moonlight, each throw splitting a zombie’s skull.

When the zombie horde finally got to the wall they formed humanoid ladders, climbing over each other to reach the battlements. Woods and Gerald leaned over the crenulations, slashing the undead apart with great arching attacks with their longer weapons.

I had to content myself with cutting off hands and heads as they finally reached the top of the wall. Soon I was running back and forth along my third of the wall, hacking down on zombies and trusting Eva and the archers to not shoot me in the back when I stepped in front of them. As soon as I cut down one of the climbers, the archers or Eva would step back up to the wall and resume firing.

Sarah carried bundles of arrows from where they were stacked, reloading each archer as they ran out of ammo. The rate we were going through them, I wasn’t sure they would last the night.

I was so focused on the undead in front of me, I didn’t even see the threat before Woods called out, “Holy Arrows!”

Glancing up from the piled zombies, I saw swirls of mist forming on the far side of the bridge and sweeping in our direction. As the mist got closer, I could make out individual shapes. Distended humanoid forms flew from the mass of fog, sweeping over the zombie’s heads.

“Loose,” the Halberdier called, and a quintet of glowing bolts raced across the bridge to meet the oncoming flyers.

Despite the apparent incorporeality of the misty forms, the bolts slammed into the figures, getting lodged in their ghostly bodies. There was a series of bright gold flashes, and three quarters of the fog burned away in holy light.

“Again,” Woods shouted, and another round of glowing bolts hit the remaining flying figures. Thankfully, this volley was enough to finish off the mist creatures. They flew fast enough that they would have reached the wall before there was time for a third volley.

Realizing that I had been ignoring the zombies during the light show, I redoubled my efforts to beat back the climbing monsters. The task became repetitive quickly, though never quite boring. The sheer number of enemies was novel enough to keep me focused on the task at hand. Unlike our ventures into the Old City, where we could easily hold off the smaller hordes, there were so many zombies on the bridge that there was a real threat of getting overwhelmed.

No individual zombie posed a problem, but after twenty minutes of hacking away, my breath was coming in great heaving gasps and my arms felt leaden. It didn’t help that every zombie we killed made it easier for the next ones to climb up. Eventually the undead were scrambling up a ramp of corpses more than climbing a wall.

Just as I thought my heart would burst from exertion, the zombies started thinning out. The opposite bank was empty, and the bridge only held stragglers. The archers made short work of the remaining zombies and I took the opportunity to catch my breath, letting my sword and buckler drop to the stone battlements.

“Did we win?” Eva asked, sounding as worn out as I felt.

“Only the first wave,” Woods answered. “We should have a few hours of peace before the second one starts.”

“Uhhhg,” the Harlequin groaned before slumping to the floor. “I’m going to need to recover my throwing knives.” she said. “I’m almost out.”

I turned to Woods. “Is that alright,” I asked. “Going down and then back up won’t count as letting something past the wall, right?”

“I've deputized you all into the Bridge Guard for the night, so you’re good to go onto the bridge and back. Just don’t go down the other side,” he gestured towards the living city, “I’m not sure if the ‘deputy’ flag will stick if you leave the quest area.”

“Got it,” I said. I’d go down and help Eva find her knives, I just needed to sit for a minute first.

As we rested, Woods jotted down something in his journal. A few minutes later, his guardsmen hauled up bundles of goods from the city. “I requisitioned enough arrows, normal and holy, to replace what we used,” the Halberdier explained. “I even had enough points left over to get one of these bad boys,” he said, patting the machine one of the guardsmen was rapidly assembling.

It looked like a trebuchet, but only half the size of the usual siege engine. “This is how we toss the firebombs,” Woods said. “I could only afford one shot, to go with it, but it should help lighten the load when we need a break. Sarah, are you good with pulling the pin when the time comes?”

“I have no idea how to aim that thing,” the Archivist replied dubiously.

“We’ll have it dialed in right at the choke point,” Wood reassured her. “All you need to do is give the triggering rope a good pull when I give the order.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Sarah said.

Having got my breath back, I got up and started recovering throwing-knives. The footing, being made up of a shifting mass of zombie corpses, was very treacherous. The bridge guards, Gerald, and I began the arduous task of clearing the bodies. We looted what was readily available—jewelry, coin purses, embedded ammunition—before throwing the corpses into the river. Definitely not an environmentally friendly choice, but necessary to clear the way for the next wave.

After dumping the bodies, we cleaned up with buckets of water Sarah had hauled up from the guardhouse. I could have really used a real bath, but even just getting my hands and face clean was a relief. We even had a makeshift meal. It wasn't fancy, just jerky and a few preserved fruits and vegetables. The tin cans gave the food an odd taste, but it was better than going hungry.

The second wave came around midnight. It was similar to the first, only longer. The only really difficult part was when a pack of demon dogs attacked. I thought Woods was going to order the archers to shoot holy arrows again, but Sarah warned against it. The hounds, despite their mangey appearance and cannibalistic nature, were not truly undead and the holy magic would be ineffective against them.

Instead, Woods ordered the firebomb launched just after the pack passed through the choke point. The dogs were resistant to fire as well as positive energy, so the firebomb would be wasted on them. Instead, we used it to cut off the zombies, to give us a break while we dealt with the hounds. Likewise the Halberdier ordered the archers and Eva to focus on the zombies instead of the approaching dog monsters.

The last thing we needed was for one of the archers to take out a hound and give the others something to feast on. The boost the dogs got from cannibalism was far more dangerous than their numbers.

When the pack reached us, wiry muscles bunched and they launched into the air, clearing the zombies and the top of the wall. I managed to slam into one, sending it tumbling back into the zombies below, but another half dozen landed among us.

Luckily for Wood’s quest, the demon dogs were more interested in killing the defenders than breaking for the other side of the guardhouse. If they had broken for the living city, I was sure at least one of them would have made it to the other side, causing the quest to fail.

The archers fell back, drawing shortswords, while the testers engaged. Gerald bellowed a taunt, forcing the monsters to turn to him. Woods and I hacked and slashed the dogs while they were distracted. Eva drew a pair of long daggers and joined the melee, practically dancing through the enemies, drawing long bleeding cuts in her wake.

Whenever a dog fell, Woods quickly ordered the archers to toss the body into the river. As long as we kept them from feeding on the corpses, the dogs would remain manageable. When the last of the dogs was tossed over the side, we rushed back to the wall to beat back the zombies. Some of them had reached the top of the wall in the time we took to deal with the pack.

Just as I thought we were going to get things back under control, the demon dog I had knocked back onto the bridge earlier pounced, falling on one of the archers. Woods beheaded the monster quickly, but when I dragged the corpse off, the guardsmen's stomach poured blood from where the dog’s claws had ravaged him.

Woods cursed and put pressure on the wound, but it clearly wouldn’t be enough to save the man. Gerald taunted the horde of zombies to keep them distracted. I finished dumping the dog’s corpse and was about to go help the Crusader when Sarah snatched up a glowing arrow and ran over to the downed archer.

She took the dagger off Wood’s belt, carved a quick slice into the wooden shaft, and placed the holy weapon against the gaping wound. In a flash of light, the arrow spent its enchantment, rapidly sealing up the guardsmen’s injury. Moments later, pale and a bit shaky, the archer rejoined the fight. Woods shot Sarah a quick smile before following.

Gerald and the other archers had been hard pressed by the zombies in our absence, but the fire bomb had done its job well. The number of undead getting through the conflagration was drastically lower than the earlier horde, and the Crusader managed to fight the monsters to a standstill. Back at full force, we swept the zombies off the wall, and cleared the rest of the wave without issues.

After the last of the zombies were dealt with Woods thanked Sarah for her timely intervention. At his prompting, the Archivist explained what she had done. Apparently, damaging the runes engraved in the shaft was enough to destabilize them, causing the positive energy to be expended without the arrow being embedded in a target.

“That’s fantastic,” Woods exclaimed. “I didn’t get healing potions as an option this time. The holy arrows cost more points than a potion, but much faster acting, and it gives me a healing option when potions aren’t available for requisition.”

“Do you need one too Gerald?” Eva asked. “You took a lot of hits this time.”

“Nope,” Gerald exclaimed happily. “Not a scratch on me,” he said, rapping his gauntlet against the golden cross embossed on his chest piece. That armor really was something. If I had taken the number of attacks the Crusader suffered, I would be a bloody wreck.

“So, are we done here?” Eva asked, rubbing her throwing arm.

“One more wave,” Woods said. “And this is the big one. Hope you guys are ready for a boss fight.”